The cats fall asleep in the window. Birds flutter branch to branch. Everything is the same but something has changed. The tilt of light through the blinds offers solace. Today, quiet haunts this house. Yesterday, a line of trucks charged down the street, carrying dirt from one place to the next. A neighborhood behind this one is rising. They call it progress. Roads rumbled Monday through Friday. Once I lived near a freeway; it was quieter there. I asked for suburbia, but didn’t expect holes in macadam. Sometimes I fall in. Now, the air is too still in this house. My phone has stopped ringing. Drum up some noise for me, please. My father no longer calls. When he did, he had nothing kind to say. The winter we buried him, my son slid into his grave. That son now has sons of his own. Phone lines don’t reach so far. I thought heaven was covered on the plan.
Maureen Sherbondy’s work has appeared in many journals, including Southern Humanities Review, Calyx, Oakland Review, and New York Quarterly. She has won the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the North Carolina Poet Laureate prize, and other awards. The Body Remembers is Maureen’s 12th poetry book. Maureen has also published short stories and a young adult novel. She lives in Durham, NC. Website: www.maureensherbondy.com